On July 23, 1788, a parade was held in New York to honor the new con­sti­tu­tion. 76 dis­tinct groups of men (I assume they were all men, as women were not typ­i­cally rec­og­nized in orga­nized trades, regard­less of whether or not they worked in them) were given their order of march. By my count 62 of the groups were skilled labor­ers of some type, and no I’m not count­ing “Civil Engi­neers” as labor­ers. Prob­a­bly some of the men were mem­bers of the Gen­eral Soci­ety of Mechan­ics and Trades­men, which was founded in 1785 and which admit­ted me as a mem­ber in 2000.

SALMON, Idaho — Bird enthu­si­asts are report­ing ris­ing num­bers of snowy owls from the Arc­tic wing­ing into the lower 48 states this win­ter in a mass south­ern migra­tion that a lead­ing owl researcher called “unbelievable.”